Let no enthusiast of the pastoral or romantic school, no fair reader
with eyes “deeply, darkly, beautifully blue,” sneer at the title of my
paper. I have written it after much and mature meditation.
It would be absurd to deny that the great and material changes which
our progress in civilization and the arts effect, should not impress
literature as well as manners; that the tone of our thoughts, as much as
the temper of our actions, should not sympathize with the giant strides
of inventive genius. We have but to look abroad, and confess the fact.
The facilities of travel which our day confers, have given a new and
a different impulse to the human mind; the man is no longer deemed a
wonder who has journeyed some hundred miles from home,--the miracle will
soon be he who has not been everywhere.
To persist, therefore, in dwelling on the same features, the same
fortunes, and the same characters of mankind, while all around us is
undergoing a great and a formidable revolution, appears to me as insane
an effort as though we should try to preserve our equilibrium during the
shock of an earthquake.
The stage lost much of its fascination when, by the diffusion of
literature, men could read at home what once they were obliged to go
abroad to see. Historical novels, in the same way, failed to produce the
same excitement, as the readers became more conversant with the passages
of history which suggested them. The battle-and-murder school, the
raw-head-and-bloody-bones literature, pales before the commonest
coroner’s inquest in the “Times;” and even Boz can scarce stand
competition with the _vie intime_ of a union workhouse. What, then,
is to be done? _Quæ regio terræ_ remains to be explored? Have we not
ransacked every clime and country,--from the Russian to the Red Man,
from the domestic habits of Sweden to the wild life of the Prairies?
Have we not had kings and kaisers, popes, cardinals, and ministers, to
satiety? The land service and the sea service have furnished their quota
of scenes; and I am not sure but that the revenue and coast-guard may
have been pressed into the service. Personalities have been a stock
in trade to some, and coarse satires on well-known characters of
fashionable life have made the reputation of others.
From the palace to the poorhouse, from the forum to the factory, all has
been searched and ransacked for a new view of life or a new picture
of manners. Some have even gone into the recesses of the earth, and
investigated the arcana of a coal-mine, in the hope of eliciting
a novelty. Yet, all this time, the great reformer has been left to
accomplish his operations without note or comment; and while thundering
along the earth or ploughing the sea with giant speed and giant power,
men have not endeavored to track his influence upon humanity, nor work
out any evidences of those strange changes he is effecting over the
whole surface of society. The steam-engine is not merely a power to
turn the wheels of mechanism,--it beats and throbs within the heart of
a nation, and is felt in every fibre and recognized in every sinew of
civilized man.
How vain to tell us now of the lover’s bark skimming the midnight sea,
or speak of a felucca and its pirate crew stealing stealthily across the
waters! A suitor would come to seek his mistress in the Iron Duke, of
three hundred horse-power; and a smuggler would have no chance, if he
had not a smoking-galley, with Watt’s patent boilers!
What absurdity to speak of a runaway couple, in vain pursued by an angry
parent, on the road to Gretna Green! An express engine, with a stoker
and a driver, would make the deserted father overtake them in no time!
Instead of the characters of a story remaining stupidly in one place,
the novelist now can conduct his tale to the tune of thirty miles an
hour, and start his company in the first class of the Great Western.
No difficulty to preserve the unities! Here he journeys with bag and
baggage, and can bring twenty or more families along with him, if he
like. Not limiting the description of scenery to one place or spot, he
whisks his reader through a dozen counties in a chapter, and gives him
a bird’s-eye glance of half England as he goes; thus, how original the
breaks which would arise from an occasional halt, what an afflicting
interruption to a love story, the cry of the guard, “Coventry, Coventry,
Coventry;” or, “Any gentleman, Tring, Tring, Tring;” with the
more agreeable interjection of “Tea or coffee, sir?--one brandy and
soda-water--‘Times,’ ‘Chronicle,’ or ‘Globe.’”
How would the great realities of life flash upon the reader’s mind,
and how insensibly would he amalgamate fact with fiction! And, lastly,
think, reflect, what new catastrophe would open upon an author’s
vision; for while, to the gentler novelist, like Mrs. Gore, an
eternal separation might ensue from starting with the wrong train, the
bloody-minded school would revel in explosions and concussions, rent
boilers, insane luggage-trains, flattening the old gentlemen like
buffers. Here is a vista for imagination, here is scope for at
least fifty years to come. I do not wish to allude to the accessory
consequences of this new literary school, though I am certain music and
the fine arts would both benefit by its introduction; and one of the
popular melodies of the day would be “We met; ‘t was in a tunnel.” I
hope my literary brethren will appreciate the candor and generosity with
which I point out to them this new and unclaimed spot in Parnassus. No
petty jealousies, no miserable self-interests, have weighed with me.
I am willing to give them a share in my discovered country, well aware
that there is space and settlement for us all,--locations for every
fancy, allotments for every quality of genius. For myself I reserve
nothing; satisfied with the fame of a Columbus, I can look forward to a
glorious future, and endure all the neglect and indifference of present
ingratitude. Meanwhile, less with the hope of amusing the reader than
illustrating my theory, I shall jot down some of my own experiences, and
give them a short series of the “Romance of a Railroad.”
But, ere I begin, let me make one explanation for the benefit of the
reader and myself.
The class of literature which I am now about to introduce to the public,
unhappily debars me from the employment of the habitual tone and the
ordinary aids to interest prescriptive right has conferred on the
novelist. I can neither commence with “It was late in the winter of
1754, as three travellers,” etc., etc.; or, “The sun was setting” or,
“The moon was rising;” or, “The stars were twinkling;” or, “On the 15th
Feb., 1573, a figure, attired in the costume of northern Italy, was seen
to blow his nose;” or, in fact, is there a single limit to the mode in
which I may please to open my tale. My way lies in a country where there
are no roads, and there is no one to cry out, “Keep your own side of the
way.” Now, then, for--